The prior art offers two types of covers for vehicle cargo beds such as pickup truck cargo beds. The first type are commonly known as cargo bed or tonneau covers and fit substantially even with the top of a pickup truck's cargo bed. They come in either soft fabric, normally a coated canvas type material, or hard structure, generally a fiberglass or other rigid material. The hard structure cargo bed covers, in their most popular arrangement, tilt upward from were they are attached to the front end of the cargo bed or are made from one or more pieces and are removable for when hauling cargo that is higher than the sides of the cargo bed. Another version is made from a number of attached pieces that can be retracted into a storage compartment at the front of the cargo bed to thereby get it out of the way when hauling cargo higher than the cargo bed sides. All of these suffer a serious limitation in that they cannot be used when hauling cargo higher than the sides of the cargo bed unless they are tilted up, removed, or retracted. In all cases, hauling the higher cargo exposes such cargo to weather and wind damage.
The second type is most commonly known as the camper top or topper. These are full cab height and extend from the cab, or passenger cab as sometimes known, to the tailgate. They provide a full cab height weather proof compartment and, while removable with some effort required to unbolt and store the unit, are generally permanently installed. The most common construction for these topper units is from fiberglass so as to provide the necessary rigid structure.
There is also a full time cargo bed cover as it were on Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV's) where there is a non-retractable full height cover that extends to the rear of the vehicle. There is a tailgate or aft gate on such vehicles that opens to allow insertion or removal of cargo from the back permanently covered part of the vehicle. There is also a new SUV vehicle offered by General Motors that has a forwardly sliding top section. This latter concept still has side and frames and windows that are permanent. The only purpose is to give a vehicle that can carry high objects that are higher than the top of the vehicle. The fact that there is no access to the sides of the cargo bed is a severe handicap as cargo cannot be loaded into the cargo bed except from the aft end.
The instant invention solves the shortcomings of all of the prior art types in that it offers a full cab height waterproof unit that is retractable so that the cargo bed is open to both the top and sides, in other words fully open, over most of this length. This provides a pickup type look and easy access to the open cargo bed when retracted. When extended, it provides a full cab height waterproof enclosure over the cargo bed. The instant invention is applicable as both an aftermarket product to pickup trucks and the like and also to new pickup truck, SUV, and similar factory designs.
The instant invention also offers a unique means to extend the length of the cargo bed of a pickup truck and/or to extend the passenger compartment of a SUV. This is accomplished by having a first tailgate like member positioned forward of a cargo bed or similar vehicle bed. The first tailgate rotates downward to be out of the way when it is desired to extend the bed length. In the preferred embodiment, a seat forward of the first tailgate also rotates so that a flat floor is provided all the way forward into the passenger compartment. This provides for an extremely long and flat floor for carrying cargo and/or for extending the passenger compartment. It is important to note that this method of extending the length of the cargo bed and/or passenger compartment may be used in conjunction with the retractable cab height bed cover. It is also applicable for use with an aft bed of a vehicle, such as the cargo bed of a pickup truck, that has no bed cover or that has a fixed bed cover.